The Chew Valley is an area in North Somerset, England, named after
the
River Chew, which rises at Chewton Mendip, and joins the River Avon
at
Keynsham. Technically, the area of the valley is bounded by the
water
catchment area of the Chew and its tributaries; however, the name
Chew
Valley is often used less formally to cover other nearby areas, for
example, Blagdon Lake and its environs, which by a stricter
definition
are part of the Yeo Valley. The valley is an area of rich arable and
dairy farmland, interspersed with a number of villages. The
landscape
consists of the valley of the River Chew and is generally low-lying
and undulating. It is bounded by higher ground ranging from Dundry
Down to the north, the Lulsgate Plateau to the west, the Mendip Hills
to the south and the Hinton Blewett, Marksbury and Newton Saint Loe
plateau areas to the east. The valley's boundary generally follows
the
top of scarp slopes except at the southwestern and southeastern
boundaries where flat upper areas of the Chew Valley grade gently
into
the Yeo Valley and eastern Mendip Hills respectively.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chew_Valley
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1876:
Abdul Hamid II became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire when his brother
Murad V was deposed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hamid_II)
1888:
In Victorian London, Jack the Ripper claimed his first victim.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper)
1920:
Polish forces, led by their cavalry, defeated the Bolshevik Red Army
in
the Battle of Komarów.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Komarów)
1986:
After a collision with a freighter, Soviet ocean liner Admiral
Nakhimov
sank in the Black Sea within 7 minutes, killing 398 on board.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiral_Nakhimov_(ship))
1992:
Pascal Lissouba was inaugurated as the President of the Republic of
the
Congo after a multi-party presidential election, ending a long history
of one-party Marxist rule.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_Lissouba)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat,
and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be
wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like
hell.
And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You
will
be dead soon enough." -- William Saroyan
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Saroyan)
The history of Central Asia is defined primarily by the area's
climate
and geography. The aridness of the region made agriculture difficult
and its distance from the sea cut it off from much trade. Thus, few
major cities developed in the region; instead the area was for
millennia dominated by the nomadic horse peoples of the steppe. The
nomadic lifestyle was well suited to warfare, and the steppe horse
riders became some of the most militarily potent peoples in the
world,
limited primarily by their lack of internal unity. The dominance of
the nomads ended in the 16th century as firearms allowed settled
peoples to gain control of the region. Russia, China, and other
powers
expanded into the region, and had captured the bulk of Central Asia
by
the end of the 19th century. After the Russian Revolution, most
Central Asian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union; only
Mongolia remained nominally independent. The Soviet areas of Central
Asia saw much industrialization and construction of infrastructure,
but also the suppression of local cultures, hundreds of thousands of
deaths from failed collectivization programs, and a lasting legacy of
ethnic tensions and environmental problems. With the collapse of the
Soviet Union, five Central Asian countries gained independence,
although none of the new republics could be considered a functional
democracy.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Central_Asia
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1533:
Emperor Atahualpa was executed by Conquistadors in Cajamarca during
the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atahualpa)
1756:
Frederick II of Prussia launched an invasion of Saxony, starting the
Seven Years' War.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II_of_Prussia)
1907:
The Quebec Bridge, the longest cantilever bridge in the world,
collapsed during construction, killing 75 workers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Bridge)
1944:
Slovak troops turned against the pro-Nazi regime of Jozef Tiso and the
German Wehrmacht, starting the Slovak National Uprising.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_National_Uprising)
2005:
Storm surges of Hurricane Katrina caused multiple breaches in levees
around New Orleans, flooding most of the city.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and
ought
most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is
that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless
than
beasts." -- John Locke
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Locke)
A sequence alignment in bioinformatics is a way of arranging DNA,
RNA,
or protein primary sequences to emphasize their regions of
similarity,
which may indicate functional or evolutionary relationships between
the genes or proteins in the query. Aligned sequences are typically
written with their characters (generally representing amino acids or
nucleotides) in columns into which gaps are inserted so that residues
with identical or similar characters are aligned in the successive
columns. If two sequences in an alignment share a common ancestor,
mismatches can be interpreted as point mutations and gaps as indels
(that is, insertion or deletion mutations) introduced in one or both
lineages in the time since they diverged from one another. In
protein
sequence alignment, the degree of similarity between amino acids
occupying a particular position in the sequence can be interpreted as
a rough measure of how conserved a particular region or sequence
motif
is among lineages.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_alignment
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
475:
Flavius Orestes took control of Ravenna, the capital of the Western
Roman Empire, forcing Emperor Julius Nepos to flee.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orestes_(Roman_soldier))
1565:
Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded St. Augustine in Spanish Florida, the
oldest continually occupied European settlement in the continental
United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine%2C_Florida)
1845:
The first issue of Scientific American was published.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American)
1850:
The romantic opera Lohengrin by Richard Wagner was first performed in
Weimar, Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohengrin_(opera))
1963:
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and
in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own." --
Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe)
The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by
Robert
Shea and Robert Anton Wilson primarily between 1969 and 1971. The
trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced
adventure story; a drug-, sex- and magic-laden trek through a number
of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, which hinge
around the authors' version of the Illuminati. The narrative often
switches between third and first person perspectives and jumps around
in time. It is thematically dense, covering topics like
counterculture, numerology and Discordianism. The trilogy comprises
the books The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple and Leviathan.
The
popularity of the word "fnord" and the 23 enigma can both be
attributed to the trilogy. It remains a seminal work of conspiracy
fiction, predating Foucault's Pendulum and The Da Vinci Code by
decades.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus%21_Trilogy
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1776:
British forces led by William Howe defeated the Continental Army under
George Washington in the Battle of Long Island.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Island)
1896:
Zanzibar surrendered within an hour after the Anglo-Zanzibar War broke
out.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanzibar)
1928:
The Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign
policy, was signed by 60 nations.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg-Briand_Pact)
1939:
Experimental jetplane Heinkel He 178 became the world's first aircraft
to fly under turbojet power.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_178)
1985:
The Nigerian government of Muhammadu Buhari was overthrown by Ibrahim
Babangida.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Babangida)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not
duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that
brooks no compromise leads us to truth." -- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in our solar system,
orbiting the Sun once every 88 days. It ranges in brightness from
about −2.0 to 5.5 in apparent magnitude. The planet remains
comparatively little known: the only spacecraft to approach Mercury
was Mariner 10 from 1974 to 1975, which mapped only 40%–45% of the
planet's surface. Physically, Mercury is similar in appearance to
the
Moon as it is heavily cratered. It has no natural satellites and no
real atmosphere. The planet has a large iron core which generates a
magnetic field about 1% as strong as that of the Earth. Surface
temperatures on Mercury range from about 90 to 700 K, with the
subsolar point being the hottest and the bottoms of craters near the
poles being the coldest.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1814:
Washington, D.C. was burnt down during the War of 1812.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington)
1835:
The New York Sun perpetrated the Great Moon Hoax.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moon_Hoax)
1912:
The Kuomintang was founded by Sung Chiao-jen and Dr. Sun Yat-sen in
Guangdong, China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang)
1920:
In the Polish-Soviet War, the Battle of Warsaw ended with a Russian
defeat.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_(1920))
1989:
The Voyager 2 spacecraft reached Neptune, the last planet it could
visit before leaving the solar system.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"Being inoffensive, and being offended, are now the twin addictions
of
the culture." -- Martin Amis
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Amis)
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a
form
of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the Catholic Church,
performed in the Mass and the monastic Office. Although popular
legend
credits Pope St. Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant,
scholars believe that it arose from a later synthesis of Roman chant
and Gallican chant commissioned by Carolingian rulers, especially
Charlemagne. Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other
indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the
official music of the Catholic liturgy. Although Gregorian chant is
no
longer obligatory, the Catholic Church still officially considers it
the music most suitable for worship.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_chant
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
79:
Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum,
and Stabiae with volcanic ash.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Vesuvius)
410:
The Visigoths under Alaric I sacked Rome.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaric_I)
1572:
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre: a massacre of Huguenots began. An
estimated 70,000 people were killed in France in the following weeks.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre)
1821:
The Treaty of Córdoba was signed, ratifiying the Plan de Iguala and
concluding Mexico's War of Independence from Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_War_of_Independence)
1954:
President Getúlio Vargas of Brazil shot himself to death in the Catete
Palace in Rio de Janeiro.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getúlio_Vargas)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate
executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our
ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need
soldiers
patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves." -- Howard Zinn
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn)
The IG Farben Building was built from 1928–1930 as the corporate
headquarters of the IG Farben conglomerate in Frankfurt am Main,
Germany. A competition was held to design the building and was won
by
the architect Hans Poelzig. On completion, the complex was the
largest
office building in Europe and remained so until the 1950s. The IG
Farben Building's six square wings retain a modern, spare elegance,
despite its mammoth size. It is also notable for its paternoster
elevators. The building was the headquarters for research projects
relating to the development of Nazi wartime synthetic oil and rubber,
and the production administration of magnesium, lubricating oil,
explosives, methanol, and Zyklon B. After WWII, the IG Farben
Building
served as the headquarters for the Supreme Allied Command and became
the principal location for implementing the Marshall Plan, which
largely financed the post-war reconstruction of Europe. The US Army
returned control of the IG Farben Building to the German government
in
1995. It was purchased on behalf of the University of Frankfurt by
the
state of Hesse, which committed €25 million to the restoration.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben_Building
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1485:
The Battle of Bosworth Field decisively ended the Wars of the Roses.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field)
1851:
The yacht America won the first America's Cup near the Isle of Wight,
England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Cup)
1864:
The Red Cross movement led by Henry Dunant officially began when
twelve European nations signed the First Geneva Convention.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dunant)
1910:
Korea was annexed by Japan with the signing of the Japan-Korea
Annexation Treaty.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea)
1989:
Nolan Ryan struck out Rickey Henderson, becoming the first pitcher in
Major League Baseball to record 5000 strikeouts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Ryan)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life
as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors,
nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is
innocent: if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all
require their strong wine diluted by a very large admixture of
insipid
common sense." -- Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil%
2C_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury)
Cynna Kydd is an Australian netball player. She is currently goal
shooter for the Melbourne Phoenix in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy,
after a controversial defection from local rivals the Melbourne
Kestrels in early 2006. Kydd had previously played for the Kestrels
since 2000, and was the Kestrels captain from 2005 until her
transfer.
An often accurate and high-scoring shooter, Kydd was voted as the
Commonwealth Bank Trophy's Most Valuable Player in 2004, and was a
frequent member of the Australian national netball team from 2003 to
2005, but injury and a downturn in form saw her dropped from the
national side in early 2005. Although she took some time to settle
in
at the Phoenix after her shock departure from the Kestrels, she
subsequently recovered to have a successful season, and remains in
contention to re-enter the national team in 2007.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynna_Kydd
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
636:
Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid took control of Syria and
Palestine in the Battle of Yarmouk, marking the first great wave of
Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmouk)
917:
Bulgarians led by Tsar Simeon I drove the Byzantines out of Thrace
with a decisive victory in the Battle of Anchialus.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_I_of_Bulgaria)
1882:
The "1812 Overture", an orchestral work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky,
was first performed at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_Overture)
1968:
At least 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invaded
Czechoslovakia, abruptly ending a period of political liberalization
known as "Prague Spring".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring)
1991:
Estonia regained its independence in the Singing Revolution, breaking
away from the Soviet Union.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even
death may die. -- H. P. Lovecraft
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft)
Sikhism is a religion that began in sixteenth century Northern India
with the teachings of Nanak and nine successive human Gurus. This
system of religious philosophy and expression has been traditionally
known as the Gurmat. Sikhism is the ninth-largest organised religion
in the world. The principal belief in Sikhism is faith in one God —
Vāhigurū. Sikhism advocates the pursual of salvation through
disciplined, personal meditation on the name and message of God. The
followers of Sikhism are ordained to follow the teachings of the ten
Sikh Gurus, or enlightened leaders, as well as the holy scripture —
the Gurū Granth Sāhib — which includes the selected works of many
authors from diverse socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. The
text
was decreed by Gobind Singh as the final guru of the Khalsa Panth.
Adherents of Sikhism are known as Sikhs and number over 23 million
across the world. However, most Sikhs live in the state of Punjab in
India; prior to partition, millions of Sikhs used to live in what is
now the Punjab province of Pakistan.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1807:
Robert Fulton started the first commercial steamboat service in the
world.
1896:
Bridget Driscoll became the first person to be killed in a
petrol-driven car accident.
1914:
World War I: Ignoring orders to retreat, Hermann von François led a
successful counterattack defending East Prussia in the Battle of
Stalluponen and scored the first German victory in the Eastern Front.
1962:
East German border guards shot and killed Peter Fechter as he
attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin.
1988:
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan was killed in a plane crash.
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"One isn't born one's self. One is born with a mass of expectations,
a
mass of other people's ideas — and you have to work through it all."
-- V.S. Naipaul
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V.S._Naipaul)
Hurricane Mitch was one of the most powerful and deadliest hurricanes
ever observed, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 km/h).
The
storm was the ninth hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season.
At the time, Mitch was the strongest hurricane ever observed in the
Atlantic Ocean in the month of October, though it has since been
surpassed by Hurricane Wilma. Mitch formed in the western Caribbean
Sea on October 22, and after drifting through extremely favorable
conditions, it rapidly strengthened to peak as a Category 5 status on
the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. After drifting southwestward and
weakening, the hurricane hit Honduras as a minimal hurricane. It
drifted through Central America, reformed in the Bay of Campeche, and
ultimately struck Florida as a strong tropical storm. Due to its
slow
motion, Hurricane Mitch dropped historic amounts of rainfall from
October 29 to November 3, with unofficial reports of up to 75 inches
(1,900 mm). Deaths due to catastrophic flooding made it the second
deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history. The flooding caused extreme
damage, amounting to around $7 billion (2005 USD).
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Mitch
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1777:
American Revolutionary War: The New Hampshire Militia led by John
Stark routed British and German troops under Friedrich Baum in the
Battle of Bennington.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bennington)
1819:
Cavalry charged into a crowd, turning a public meeting in Manchester,
England into the Peterloo Massacre.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre)
1896:
A group led by Skookum Jim Mason discovered gold near Dawson City,
Yukon, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_Gold_Rush)
1960:
Joseph Kittinger parachuted from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800
feet (31,330 m), setting records for: high-altitude jump, free-fall
height, and fastest speed by a human without an aircraft.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger)
1962:
The Beatles fired drummer Pete Best and replaced him with Ringo Starr.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
"The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly
indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame.
The
world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one
outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be
spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed,
untrammelled
by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human
action." -- Winston Churchill
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill)